Nothing new for anyone who already works in NEOs, but… here’s a nice overview paper. In the latest issue of Remote Sensing (vol. 16, issue 22, November #2):
Espartero, F. Cubas, J. Nespral, D. et al. New Astronomical Observatory Design for the Detection and Tracking of Satellite Objects: The Satellite Robotic Observatory (SRO). art. 4206 rs16224206
I’ve already posted about the AMOS Conference. A telescope that works for natural bodies in space (asteroids, and to an extent meteors) also works for artificial bodies (satellites, which are collision risks, and foreign strategic assets). By this point in history, the bright, ‘easy’ NEO threats have been found, so planetary-defense people need larger apertures than defense-defense people. But the concept is the same; if anything, anti-sat or anti-collision optics (“Space Situational Awareness”) are somewhere between being small NEO apertures, and large, complex meteor optics. And the optics for gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), supernovae, neutrino detections, and now gravity-wave events span the whole range.
The sky: it’s an interesting place. Two of those interesting things, NEOs and satellites, need us keeping an eye on them. Fortunately, the tech is basically the same.